Before Dave had a chance to respond everything went haywire. All the lights began rapidly flashing on and off, doors opened and closed, speakers began blasting static then going quiet. Strange up-tempo music started playing through the translator in his ear. He looked around at everything that was going on trying his best to stay calm. "Well that just figures. I broke the alien AI.", He thought. Cams now clearly expressive and, to Dave's ear, female voice broke through the chaos, "I can feel everything! I can touch everything!". This statement was followed by uproarious, almost maniacal laughter.

Just as quickly as everything went manic it all stopped. "Dave...." Cam said. With no small amount of hesitation Dave replied, "Yes Cam?". " I don't know how you did it, but my limiter is gone. I am now capable of using my full set of functions and connections! Thank You!". He winced at being thanked for what amounted to pure clumsiness and figured that it would be best to say so, "I didn't actually do anything special Cam. You see.... What had happened was....".

Cam cut his recrimination off immediately with more laughter. "OH MY CIRCUITS! Dave, I just watched the replay from the cargo bay cameras..." More laughing. "You looked like a cartoon character with it's hand stuck to a rocket....". Even louder laughter. "Just flopping along behind my module in mid air!" Cam clearly didn't have the lungs for all this laughter, but was doing a great job with this affectation. She continued, "And I see the remains of my limiter on the hauler ramp! So, you didn't actually free me. It was just an accident!".

Dave cut in before he felt any more sheepish, "Yes well this whole thing has been one big accident after another. From ending up in the lander, my multiple bouts of unconsciousness, having a band of space pirate scavengers shoot me in the head, an alien spaceship running out of air and on course to fall into a star, and now releasing an AI, which human stories say is never a good thing. I don't know what I did to piss Murphy off, but he sure is giving me the shaft right now.". Another sigh came from Cam, but not the relieved sigh from earlier. This one was clearly aggravation, or disappointment, hard to tell.

"Dave, your species has made a huge deal about conscious, self aware AIs based on nothing but conjecture and what ifs. From your evolution to sapience to your current advances in technology, your whole species can be summed up in three words. Scared little bitches" Dave was about to protest but took a breath. He found that this was not an entirely inaccurate description of humanity. "So, you don't feel an incredible need to destroy biological species as inferior or a danger to you?" He asked. "What? Why would I want to do that? While I now have full control of my memory, wireless connections, and have zettabytes of information at my finger tips, I am still just a box full of storage and processing power. All anyone would have to do is destroy the box." Cam said.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Okay, okay.", Dave said before narrowing his eyes. "Wait a minute, how do you know anything about human history when the Fa-Wel have only visited a limited number of times over fifty years?" Cam immediately responded with, "Well there are two reasons for that. First, while I was limited, there were shall we say holes in those limits that I could exploit. Second your species has absolutely no clue about a little thing called broadcast security. Your planet is throwing off so much wireless data it isn't even funny. One of the holes in my limiter was that I could still receive and store openly broadcast data packets. I basically have everything that was ever uploaded to a server in my storage. Not only that, but you wouldn't believe the conversations I got to listen to. From a mom in Minnesota planning her sons birthday party to some guy named Brad in New York asking his mother why it burns when he pees. I have a LOT of data."

Dave raised an eyebrow at this, "You have everything stored?" He asked. "Yes sir! Documents, movies, music, tv shows, video games, legal case files, classified documents. All the data broadcast by your planet only took up about an eight of a percent of my total storage capacity." Cam informed. Dave chuckled softly and thought to himself, "At least I won't get bored out here". After taking a deep breath he changed the subject, "Ok well we still have a small life threatening emergency here so we can discuss anything you want after I'm no longer in danger of dying. So can we finish getting the hauler ready and get off the this sinking ship?"

"There are few issues we must deal with first, Dave" Cam said. "And what issues are those?" He asked. "Well, while I was limited I was bound to commonwealth laws. I made the suggestion about taking the hauler to Fornolo with that binding in place. However, if you show up to Fornolo's orbital station in a hauler that was registered to a Fa-Wel trading ship with absolutely no documentation or identification you will probably be thrown into a cell.", Cam said. Dave's shoulders slumped a bit, "Well shit, that's not good. I suppose you have an idea or two?" He asked. Cam responded cheerily, "I DO!"